


we'll turn and face whatever comes our way it's all just heads and tails

by safelikespringtime



Category: Invaders (Marvel), Marvel, Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: Angst, Bucky Barnes Remembers, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, It's set in the 1960s, M/M, Mild Blood, Reunited and It Feels So Good, Toro loves Bucky so much okay you don't understant, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, he loves him so much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:54:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26372296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/safelikespringtime/pseuds/safelikespringtime
Summary: “I thought you were dead.” It’s the third time the words leave his mouth, but this time there’s a need to them, a pleading with Bucky to understand why he can’t leave. “Whatever version of you, you say or-or think you are. I don’t care. Because I thought you were dead, the plane blew up and they said you were dead and now some twenty-odd years later you’re standing in front of me, very much not dead and I can’t lose you again. Please.”***In 1968 New York, Toro sees a guy with a metal arm driving in pursuit of another vehicle. He's curious and wants to make sure things are safe so he follows. Next thing he knows he's sitting face to face with Bucky Barnes. Bucky who is supposed to be dead.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Thomas "Toro" Raymond
Comments: 4
Kudos: 5





	we'll turn and face whatever comes our way it's all just heads and tails

**Author's Note:**

> Title pulled from Heads and Tails by Banners

Despite Bucky being gone for over 20 years now…he’s forever remained a part of Toro’s life. He sees him in his dreams, in both restless nights filled with gunfire and torment, and in a full sleep with arms around him and the faint smell of sweat that tickled his nostrils. He hears his laugh in the children down in the street, and the music wafting through the radio when Ann plays it in the mornings over breakfast. He feels his warm embrace when he’s sat on the hill overlooking the carnival, chewing a Hershey’s bar, much like they’d done together once upon a time. He hears his sleep ridden voice one day when Ann buys a painting of a sunflower field to hang in the living space, remembering late one winter night curled close against each other when unprompted and sleep ridden he’d whispered, _“sunflowers are beautiful, don’t you think?”_.

Toro hates to admit it, especially knowing how happy Ann makes him. But he misses Bucky. That hasn’t changed since he lost him. He misses the way his eyes lit up with mischief whenever he got an idea. The way he knew what to say to make him feel better—even when he probably shouldn’t have said it. He misses the feeling of his kiss, his lips chapped and rushed so as not to get caught when nobody was around. He misses the way that Bucky never made him feel like he wasn’t enough, the way that even when they fought he knew he could always count on him. He loves Ann. But it’s different to how he loved Bucky once upon a time, that was a love that he’s not sure he’ll ever quite be able to forget, no matter what life brings his way.

Toro flicks through the newspaper, only half listening as Otis—the old man who ran the news stand—chatters on about the change in the way women present themselves these days. He likes Otis, Otis fought in the war, lost his thumb and three of his fingers on his writing hand in the process. He’s also one of the more progressive persons Toro has met in his years trying to remain off the metaphorical grid. Otis lives on his own in an apartment above the news stand, but on the weekends he disappears north to visit his ‘best friend’ from the war. But Toro knows, he recognises the way he looks when he talks about him, sees him toy with the tags he wears around his neck, usually tucked under his shirt. The same expression that crosses his own face whenever he lets himself linger too long on the thought of Bucky.

Whenever he’s with Otis, Toro can’t help to think what life might have been like if Bucky hadn’t passed. If they still won the war and Bucky was still around. Would they be settled down now? Would Toro be living in an apartment alone in the city, visiting Bucky in Indiana on the weekends? Would they still be together? Would Bucky have found a pretty dame and married her, have a couple kids. Found his sister.

His attention is drawn as two cars round the corner, he’s not sure what it is that pulls his gaze, nothing indifferent about them, except that maybe they’re going a little faster than would be considered appropriate but it’s not all that uncommon to see. His eyes follow the green car a moment and then flicker to the cream car chasing it. And then it clicks, that’s what had drawn his focus. The cream coloured car was in fact _chasing_ the one in front. He follows the movements, barely a few seconds pass as the vehicles drive by, but it’s enough time for Toro to get a good look at the driver. Long brown hair, a black mask around his eyes. The car turns a little and the sun catches something and Toro realises the left arm, gripping the steering wheel, is made of metal. He follows the car with his eyes, memorising the number plate just in time for the screeching of wheels as the cars round off the busier street, speeding off into the distance.

“Otis, I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?” Toro says, almost absent as he drops the paper and a couple coins onto the counter, getting a look of surprise in response—or maybe there was more, but he’s gone before he can hear it, trotting off into a side street out of line of sight.

Toro doesn’t even register his movements until he’s engulfed in flames and soaring high up into the sky. It’s freeing, almost, to be surrounded by nothing but the sky, a feeling he’s missed, mostly separated himself from since losing Jim and marrying Ann. It’s like he’s been breathing smoke for years and he’s finally taking a deep breath of fresh air –which is kind of ironic, all things put into consideration.

He swoops between the buildings, his eyes tracking the streets until he catches sight of the two cars, following as inconspicuously as a person on flames soaring through the hazy afternoon sky can—how did he and Jim do this so often without being shot down?—He’s not even sure why he’s so compelled to follow, bad things happen every day. He helps where he can, but he doesn’t want to go back into the life he grew into. He knows what good he did, and he appreciates it. But he also knows the bad it did for him, the losses he saw and suffered. He doesn’t want that again. So _why_ is he so hell bent on following the man with a metal arm and mask.

 _Maybe it’s the mask_ , he thinks to himself absently. Bucky used to wear a mask like that, a strap across his eyes like that. He’d only gotten a short look at the man, but the more Toro thinks about it, the more he realises he reminds him of Bucky. The same square jaw, the same soft shade of brown in his hair. A tightness forms in Toro’s stomach and he lowers himself onto the nearest rooftop, suddenly feeling suffocated by the very thought of it.

Bucky is dead. Bucky _died_. Bucky’s been dead for 23 years.

The thought sends a wave of nausea through him and Toro stills, sinking to the ground. Twenty-three years. It’s a long time. He wasn’t even that old when he lost him. His breaths come in short gasps as he’s sent back to the day he found out Bucky had died. The way after the meeting with ‘the new Cap and Bucky’ he’d cried until there were no tears left to cry. The numbing _loss_ of Bucky not being there anymore had encompassed every move he made after that, and he’d managed to move past it as the years went on. He _had_. But the feeling’s returned, sinking into him in waves of hot guilt choking his every breath. _He should’ve been there_.

***

The taste of copper on his tongue is what wakes Toro, and he gags, turning his head to the side with just enough time to spit up what can only be identified as blood. His head throbs and his vision is slightly glazed from whatever hit he'd taken. It takes a moment to figure how he’d gotten here—wherever here is. He was on the roof, in far over his head at the memories of Bucky dragging him through the dirt. There was the sound of fighting below. There was a silence that followed. Footsteps. A glint of metal. The crushing of something hard coming in contact with his nose.

His hand rose to touch his nose and inspect the damage, there’s a flicker of motion beside him and a hand stops him half way.

“Don’t.”

Toro’s gaze follows the gloved metal hand slowly up the arm, over the shoulders to the face. His mouth goes dry.

“Bucky?” he manages to gasp out as he takes in the sight of the man. It was the same one from the car earlier, but up close he can see that it wasn’t his mind playing tricks on him and it is in fact Bucky. Without the distance and with his eyes not hidden behind the dark mask, it’s noticeably clear for Toro to see that this is his Bucky sitting beside him.

“Tom,” his name sounds new on Bucky’s lips, like he’s trying in on, like a new word, something he’s never said before.

“M’I dead?” Toro breaths before he can stop himself. But what else could this be but death? He shifts. Is death supposed to hurt this much?

Bucky’s lips quirk in a small smile and he shakes his head, hair falling in his face in the motion and he huffs, releasing Toro’s hand, Toro watching as he pulls his hair back with a fastener. With his hair off his face, Toro can see clearly that the man knelt beside him is in fact Bucky. A little older—though not looking near as aged as he should. His features are a little rougher around the edges, _tired_ is the word that Toro can mostly describe it as.

“Not dead,” Bucky says, a hint of amusement on his tongue as he shifts to pick something up.

Toro’s eyes follow his movements to see a small first aid box, the shock of Bucky being there in front of him giving way to the pain once more, “But you died.”

Bucky’s gaze drops, a small flicker of his eyes before he flashes a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes, “I feel like someone maybe should’ve told me that, could’ve done a better job.”

Toro forces his own half-hearted smile before reaching a hand up towards Bucky, freezing when he shies back from it.

“I’m gonna clean you up, okay? Then we can talk,” Bucky says quietly.

A few minutes pass in silence as Bucky patches up what Toro now gathers to have been a broken nose. He barely resists the urge to lean into his touch as Bucky’s fingers guide his face this way or that as he cleans the dried blood and sets his nose back into place with a faint pop. Toro takes the time to look around the room they’re in, it’s small and clean if you ignore the splatter of blood from where Toro had spit up upon regaining consciousness. A lone bed is sat on the other side, and Toro registers that he is sat leaned back against the front of a small sofa. It must be motel of some sort. It’s only once Bucky seems content with his work that Toro turns towards him.

“I thought you were dead, Bucky,” he breaths out, catching Bucky’s gaze carefully. “What happened? Where’ve you been?”

“Russia, mostly…” Bucky says slowly, “I can’t talk about it. I shouldn’t even be here with you. I…” he hesitates, and for a moment Toro thinks he’s going to stand up and leave.

“M’sorry about your nose.”

Toro keeps his focus a moment longer, “I thought you were dead. I thought you were dead and now you’re not and you’re here and your arm—”

Bucky’s eyes drop to his arm, taking it in a moment as if it’s the first time he’s realising it’s different, pulling away from Toro quickly once he does, pushing to his feet.

“Please don’t go,” Toro says quickly, his breath catching in his throat as Bucky stops, rigid in place. “You can’t just come back into my life like it’s nothing and then disappear again. Please don’t go.”

“I’m not,” Bucky hesitates, and his shoulders fall. “I’m not whoever you remember me to be. I don’t even know for sure if you’re who I remember you to be. I just…I saw you and I know you. But—” his words cut off, something dark passing through his gaze and Toro forces himself to his feet, head still throbbing a little at having been knocked out cold, he sways a little, but manages to stay upright as he crowds into Bucky’s space.

Bucky is still, fingers twitching as Toro reaches up to hold either side of Bucky’s face. His touch is loose, ensuring Bucky can pull away if he wants. He doesn’t.

“I thought you were dead.” It’s the third time the words leave his mouth, but this time there’s a need to them, a pleading with Bucky to understand why he can’t leave. “Whatever version of you, you say or-or think you are. I don’t care. Because I thought you were dead, the plane blew up and they said you were dead and now some twenty-odd years later you’re standing in front of me, very much not dead and I can’t _lose_ you again. _Please_.”

Bucky is clearly hesitant; it’s written all over his face in a way that is almost shocking, and Toro can’t help but think of how he looks so _young_. Eventually he gives a small nod and allows Toro to guide him over to the sofa, where they sit down.

A silence falls over the pair, neither comfortable nor uncomfortable, a steady tension of uncertainty filtering between them.

“I don’t remember much,” Bucky finally breaks the silence, twisting his fingers in his lap until Toro reaches across to still them, lacing their fingers together with such fluidity and ease that it shocks him for a moment.

“I don’t remember the crash or a whole lot before it,” he continues, muttering something in a language Toro doesn’t understand but identifies to be Russian. “I don’t remember much after either. I think that was the point. I do things for them. Mostly alone now, but in the past…there was a woman… _Natasha_. I worked with her for a while. I think I loved her.”

The words send a sinking feeling in Toro’s stomach, immediately followed by guilt because he has Ann, and he loves her.

“I think I loved you like that,” the words are barely a whisper, and if Toro weren’t sitting right beside him he probably wouldn’t have caught them. “But that’s not right, is it?”

The question is rhetorical, but Toro can’t stop himself from giving a small nod, his thumb swiping gently across Bucky’s flesh one.

“I don’t remember how I got this,” he nods to his arm, frowning a little. “I know that They gave it to me, and I guess I know why They did but I don’t know how.”

Toro releases Bucky’s hands, carefully taking the metal one into his own calloused fingers, tracing the plates slowly, watching them shift beneath his touch. “Your name is James Barnes. But you go by Bucky. You lost your parents when you were young, and you ended up working in the military besides Captain America,” he frowns as he pulls the memories of what Bucky had told him in their time together. “You, Cap, a half-human half-Atlantean…the Sub-Mariner, an android called the Human Torch, and me…we became the Invaders. And we fought together—and against each other on a few occasions I guess. The world is weird. We worked together for a few years and you and I we fought a _lot_. I can be pretty hot-headed and—but anyways, we fought a lot, but we were also best friends and we loved each other. But y’know loving a fella ain’t supposed t’be right an’ we had to keep it pretty secret otherwise they woulda kicked us out of the army or had us killed in some of the countries we were in.”

The more Toro spoke about how much he had loved Bucky the thicker his words come out, trailed behind with an accent he’d mostly swallowed down for a higher society than that displayed in the war.

“In 1945 you and Cap were in London going after this Nazi Scientist _Zemo._ You were on this plane and it exploded, and they couldn’t find either of you and that’s all I can really tell you about before.”

“1945,” Bucky says slowly, his eyes moving from where Toro is still holding his hand up to meet his gaze. “And you can turn into fire?”

Toro nods slowly, about to ask how Bucky knew this before remembering what had been happening before they’d ended up here.

“I saw you,” Bucky says, as if reading his mind. “I saw you in the sky when I—” he cuts himself off, looking away once more, unable to hold Toro’s gaze as the guilt settles in his stomach. “I was going to kill you. No witnesses, that’s the rule. Kill them or bring them back to become an asset.”

“But you didn’t,” Toro murmurs, motioning around the room. “I assume this isn’t your big scary headquarters?”

Bucky shakes his head, twisting his hand in Toro’s hold to lace their fingers into one another again, feeling grounded by it. “I couldn’t. I saw you and I knew you and…I still could,” the confession shocks Toro a little, “They pick me up tomorrow. But I know you and I can’t.”

“Stay with me,” the words were intended as a request, but even Toro hears the pleading question in them. Twenty-three years is a long time for Bucky to have been gone and clearly something has happened to him in that time because he doesn’t remember much—at least he isn’t telling Toro much—and Toro isn’t sure but he feels like Bucky may have been intending to kill or bring harm to whoever it was he was chasing earlier that day.

“They’ll find you. They’ll kill you.”

“I can reach Namor. I can get you somewhere safe. Please stay,” Toro breaths out earnestly, his brows knitting together.

Bucky shakes his head a little and shuffles a little closer to Toro, “I’ll think about it. We’ll talk about it tomorrow, okay?”

Toro parts his lips to protest, interrupted by his stomach gurgling loudly. A flush crawls on his cheeks as Bucky raises his eyebrow at the noise, and he realises it had been a good few hours since he’d last eaten when he had stopped in to see Otis at the news stand. He glances around the room in search of a clock, frowning as he sees it reads almost 8pm. Ann’s probably worried sick.

“There’s a diner down the road a bit,” Bucky says, keeping the statement open as an offering.

Toro is hesitant only for a moment before he gives Bucky a nod and stands to his feet.

“Let me change,” Bucky says, crossing the room to the bed, lifting a small duffle bag up onto it. He pulls out a pair of slacks and a light jacket, not unlike the outfit that Toro himself is wearing, and after a moments hesitation pulls out a shirt, tossing it in his direction.

“There’s blood on…” he waves his hand and begins to strip from his tactical gear.

Toro looks down, and sees that yes, there is blood. He watches Bucky a moment longer than probably necessary, before shedding his ruined shirt and replacing it with the one Bucky had given. It’s too big in every way imaginable and takes a few folds and tucks to make it acceptable before he pulls his coat back over to hide any out of place lumps. When he’s finished he returns his gaze to Bucky, surprised to find him looking right back, completely changed, looking far softer and younger, less tired than he had in the uniform. His hands are covered by a pair of gloves, combined with the sleek brown jacket it does well to hide the arm—unfortunately, it also hides all of the muscles that Toro had apparently paid more attention to than he’d initially thought.

“Ready to go?” Toro’s mouth is dry again and he just nods numbly because Bucky looks so…normal. It feels homely as he forces his legs into motion to follow him from the room. It was like everything they’d ever dreamed of having once upon a time. A little place of their own, going out for dinner.

_“You’d look dapper as ever in a nice suit.”_

_“And you’d be squirming about complaining you’re dressed in more’n just a pair of drawers.”_

_“You’d be the one complainin’ I’m dressed in more’n just a pair of drawers, pal. Don’t even try to deny it.”_

Toro smiles at the memory that flashes across his mind, and he glances at Bucky, seeing a similar smile on his face. Every time he looks at him it’s jarring, he _knows_ Bucky is here with him, but it’s as though each time he looks away and sees him again he’s reminded that this isn’t some dream.

They find their way to the diner in silence, taking a seat and placing their orders before either of them dare to speak to the other. Bucky looks deep in thought, and Toro is all but blank as he tries to figure out what to do about the whole situation. He can’t bring Bucky home. He can’t do that to Ann. But he can get him somewhere safe until whoever it is who’d had him forgets.

Bucky’s foot nudges him under the table and Toro looks up, flashing him a small smile, “Feels nice.”

“Feels normal,” Bucky counters quietly, his eyes somewhere distant for a brief moment. “I don’t know much what normal is anymore, but this feels…”

“Normal,” Toro finishes, nodding his head. Because it does. Achingly so.

They eat in silence, legs tangled together, hidden under the table. They share brief glances, each tiptoeing around the other’s thoughts, Bucky pays, and Toro can’t help but think…he wants this.

***

“Can I kiss you?”

The question comes the moment the door to their room closes behind him, and Toro freezes, stunned that after an entire dinner of silence these are the first words that Bucky asks. He hesitates, longer than probably appropriate and takes in the man standing before him. Because _sure_ , while Bucky looks a lot younger than he should, he’s still definitely aged, from the youth he’d disappeared at, and was now a man, stood in front of him. His eyes are lined with age, tired of whatever life has thrust upon him. But they’re still Bucky. Young, full of the same curious hope that had enlightened him when he’d asked Toro the very first time all those years back.

Toro closes the distance between them in two easy steps and pulls Bucky in by the waist. He goes tense, and Toro can’t help but panic for a moment that this was the wrong move, but then Bucky’s hands are smoothing up his arms and their lips are pressing together and Toro doesn’t have the chance to worry because his mind is chanting a mantra of _Bucky, Bucky, Bucky_.

The kiss isn’t long, maybe a few seconds, and yet when Toro pulls away he needs to gasp for air, fingers twisting tightly into the fabric of Bucky’s shirt beneath the coat.

“Hello Toro,” Bucky says quietly, and it’s not so much a greeting so much as a _there you are, I know you_.

Toro dips his head once more to kiss him, noting now that he does need to dip his head, because Bucky is shorter than him now. It churns something in his stomach, almost smug at the fact he could bully him for hours over this fact. But he doesn’t. Instead he just kisses him, and again, and again, until Bucky has this delightful smile across his features and Toro has to take a breath once more.

“I love you,” the words are out of his lips before he can stop them and Bucky freezes, the smile wiping from his face, replaced with something unreadable.

“You don’t know me,” Bucky murmurs, pulling away from Toro, leaving his fingers grasping at nothing where his waist had once been.

“Don’t go,” is all Toro manages as a response, it’s the second time he’s made the request since waking earlier and Bucky frowns at him.

“They call me the Winter Soldier.”

Chills run down Toro’s back, because he _knows_. He’s heard about the soldier, the ghost who appears and disappears and kills and people go missing and things happen. And Bucky can see the recognition in Toro’s face, visibly deflating at the fact that he must know all the things he’s done.

“Don’t go,” Toro says a third time, watching Bucky. Bucky only hesitates a moment before returning to Toro, his gloves dropping to the floor and his hands are cradling each side of Toro’s face, kissing him again.

It’s different from the others, feeling more a goodbye than the hello that had been spoken after the first. But Bucky doesn’t leave, instead he pulls away, shedding his clothes down to his underwear, removing Toro’s next as he stands there silently, uncertain in everything. Once they’re both in their briefs, Bucky shuts off the light, pulling Toro silently to the bed. He curls up smaller than should be possible and pulls Toro’s arms around him, pressing a kiss gentle to his knuckles before closing his eyes.

Toro lays awake for what feels like hours, his arms wrapped securely around Bucky where he’d pulled him in before falling asleep, scared to wake him, to have him leave. He still snores, Toro discovers, but it’s quiet and comforting, and eventually Toro can’t keep his eyes open any longer, drifting into a deep sleep.

***

The following morning when he wakes the bed is empty beside him, his clothes are folded on the sofa and if it weren’t for the dull ache in his nose and the way he can still feel Bucky’s kisses against his lips, he’d have thought it to just be an elaborate dream. He dresses quietly, looking around the room a few times in search of something to say Bucky is coming back. But his bag is gone, his gear, the medical kit, even the shirt he’d leant Toro for their dinner. Toro frowns, padding himself quietly to the bathroom to wash his face before he leaves.

When he arrives home and Ann asks him where he’s been and what happened to his face he makes up a quiet lie about having a bad memory of the war and ending up at some bar across town. He makes his way to the bathroom, murmuring silent apologies each time she tells him how worried she was. As he showers, he cries, mourning once more the loss of his love, somehow knowing he’s out there, alive, somehow that hurts more.

**Author's Note:**

> blame dei. you know what you did.


End file.
